Teresa Giudice: The Real Reason I Didn't Do Season 4 'RHONJ' Promotion

Don’t believe the scurrilous reports on the Internet that there was so much bad blood between RHONJ cast member Teresa Giudice and the rest of the New Jersey Housewives, that they couldn’t even be in the same room together for promos. Hollywoodlife.com spoke to Teresa and got the real story.

Yes, there’s been plenty of drama between Teresa Giudice and her Real Housewives of New Jersey cast mates, Caroline Manzo, Kathy Wakile, Jacqueline Laurita and Melissa Gorgaduring several show seasons, BUT that’s not the reason that Teresa has been MIA from the pre-season promo work.

The truth, Teresa Giudice told Hollywoodlife.com exclusively, is very simple, straight forward and drama-free. “My new book, Fabulicious!: Fast & Fit, is coming out May 15 and I need to do press for it on TV shows, but you can’t get booked for the same shows within a span of three weeks,” she explained .

“I really need to go on the shows to promote my cookbook and both our RHONJ network, Bravo and the shows producers are fine with me missing the RHONJ promotions, they understand,” she added.

FYI, Teresa has NOT we repeat NOT written about any of the other New Jersey Housewives in her new cookbook, she tells us. She saw how her mention of Caroline Manzo, in her first cookbook, Fabulicious!, went over like a lead balloon.

“I wasn’t saying anything malicious about Caroline or anyone else in the cookbook, and I’m sincerely sorry that I offended Caroline. I really like her,” Teresa told us. “I was joking in my cookbook.”

In fact, Teresa says she apologized to all the New Jersey Housewives about her cookbook. “It takes a year to write a cookbook. It came out last May and relationships had soured in the interim,” she says.

“Drama,” she hopes is now in her past.

“Being on Celebrity Apprentice changed my life,” she says. “I learned that there’s more important things in life, than drama. There are children that need your help.”

Teresa met a sweet 7-year-old boy, Mathew Levine, who is suffering from a debilitating and rare kidney disease, called Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). “It broke my heart. He’s a beautiful boy, who looks healthy on the outside but very sick on the inside,” she relates. She decided to take up his cause and raised $60,000 on Celebrity Apprentice for NephCure.org, the only organization exclusively devoted to supporting research for FSGS.

“All the drama of the Housewives is nothing next to this. I want to raise money and awareness,” says Teresa. “Life is too short for drama.”

Now, as for what Teresa wants to do in the fifth season of RHONJ – it’s all about “working on resolution with my friends and family.”

In the meantime, season four of the Real Housewives of New Jersey kicks off this coming Sunday, April 22 at 10 p.m. Tune in! I will!